“One thing I notice almost immediately is that in just 30 minutes, they say, ‘Oh my God, I can actually breathe,’” Rice said. “I don’t want to say it’s 100 per cent, but with at least 8 out of 10 people, their noses will open up.”

The benefits Rice has observed are confirmed in a new study, although the benefit isn’t as pronounced as she has found. The paper, published last week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, followed 422 Germans who suffered from seasonal pollen allergies. During the course of eight weeks, the subjects were divided into three groups and given three treatments — acupuncture, together with the antihistamine cetirizine; a “sham” acupuncture, along with the drug; and the drug only.

The group that had real acupuncture with the drug reported a slight improvement in their symptoms — a boost of 0.7 points on the Rhinitis Quality of Life Questionnaire, compared with the group that got no acupuncture; and a boost of 0.5 points compared with the group that received the fake acupuncture, which involved sticking them with needles in places that aren’t accepted treatment points.

This brings up the big question once again about acupuncture: Does it really work, or do people just convince themselves it works? And does it matter? A large analysis of previous studies last year determined the effectiveness rate for real acupuncture was about 50 per cent, and for sham acupuncture it was 43 per cent.